Ethereum's innovation remains at the forefront, while other chains seem to be "replicating" its path in a similar manner, even in the case of meme phenomena.

Written by: 0XNATALIE

Recently, the sentiment in the Ethereum community has been low. Since the launch of ETFs this year, the price of ETH has failed to meet market expectations. There are many reasons for this, such as the rapid development of Layer 2 technology improving transaction efficiency, but also inadvertently weakening the economic capture ability of the Ethereum main chain, leading to a gradual decline in ETH demand; narratives that once supported Ethereum's value, such as DeFi, have also gradually lost their appeal, and currently, there are not enough fresh and attractive narratives in the market.

Additionally, the price increase of Solana has become a direct comparison, and against this backdrop, FUD sentiment in the Ethereum community has spread. In particular, the Ethereum Foundation's sale of ETH has sparked widespread dissatisfaction. Many community members believe that in the context of low ETH prices, the Foundation's actions disregard market sentiment, questioning the leadership capabilities of Ethereum, and suggesting they are "self-destructing."

This negative sentiment erupted on Twitter, and criticizing Ethereum seems to have become a traffic password for certain KOLs. Since the end of October, debates surrounding Ethereum have been ongoing. Amidst this spreading sentiment, the Devcon event arrived as scheduled, bringing some confidence and positive energy to Ethereum.

In mid-November, I attended the Ethereum Developer Conference (Devcon 7) held in Bangkok. As one of the most influential events in the blockchain space, the main venue was vibrant and diverse, with an overall friendly and open atmosphere. The agenda was tightly packed with a wealth of information, but this also made it difficult to keep up with the pace in certain segments. According to official statistics, 60% of attendees were first-time participants at Devcon. When communicating with attendees, the most frequently mentioned descriptors of the conference were "chill," "colorful," and "friendly."

Interesting New Concept: POD

During the conference, I encountered an interesting concept—Provable Object Data (POD), which is a data structure used to store and manage data that needs to be verified through zero-knowledge proofs. GPC is the circuit used to verify these POD objects. In GPC, POD data is used as input, and the circuit checks whether this data meets certain preset conditions, thus deriving a verification result. For example, the ticketing system Zupass used at this conference employed POD technology to ensure the uniqueness of each ticket. When a user purchases a ticket, the Zupass system generates a POD for that ticket, containing the ticket's unique identifier, basic information, purchase time, and other data. After processing the POD data through the GPC circuit, venue staff do not see the specific details of the ticket. They only see the result verified by the zero-knowledge proof.

Core Points of Discussion

In the breaks between speeches, at the exhibition area, and in other communication spaces, I discussed multiple topics with technical and marketing personnel from different projects, among which ZK, Based Rollup, and Appchain left a deep impression.

Adam Domurad, a software engineer at Aztec, mentioned that ZK technology, due to its constant proof size and significant advantages in efficient verification, is very suitable for blockchain scalability. Compared to OP Rollup, ZK Rollup uses zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the correctness of each transaction, avoiding the risk of node malfeasance while reducing the workload of redundant verification. Currently, OP Rollup occupies a mainstream position mainly because users are more concerned about low fees and high speed rather than the superiority of underlying technology. The long-term value of ZK Rollup lies in its excellent security and scalability, and many blockchains (including Ethereum) have begun to redesign their architectures to fully leverage the potential of ZK technology. Additionally, ZK technology has shown great application potential in the field of privacy protection. For example, the Anon Aadhaar project showcased at Devcon, developed by the PSE team supported by the Ethereum Foundation, verifies Indian citizenship through zero-knowledge proofs without disclosing specific identities. However, ZK Rollup needs further optimization in speed and cost to gain broader market recognition. He confidently stated that as ZK technology continues to mature, ZK Rollup is expected to replace OP Rollup and become the mainstream scalability solution.

Ethereum researcher mteam, a 17-year-old student, focuses on the research of Based Rollup. He shared with me the design advantages of Based Rollup as an independent execution environment. By sharing sorters, multiple Based Rollups can share liquidity without direct bridging, allowing liquidity to flow between different Based Rollups through the Ethereum mainnet. This design enhances the efficiency of cross-chain operations while reducing reliance on a single bridging solution. The operating costs of decentralized sorters for Based Rollup are higher than those of centralized sorters, but multiple Based Rollups can share costs through block aggregation, significantly reducing individual operational expenses. In terms of performance, Based Rollup can achieve the same speed as other Rollups through a pre-confirmation mechanism, providing a fast user experience within Ethereum's block time (12 seconds). Economically, Based Rollup returns most of the MEV profits to Ethereum, so its main source of income comes from the gas fees paid by users. Additionally, Based Rollup achieves economic sustainability through frontend service fees and smart contract execution fees, avoiding reliance on MEV profits. Due to its deep integration with the Ethereum mainnet, Based Rollup inherits Ethereum's censorship resistance and high reliability characteristics, meaning that future upgrades to Ethereum (such as stronger censorship resistance) will directly bring additional advantages to Based Rollup.

Mark Richardson, the project leader of Carbon, mentioned that the current DeFi faces two major challenges: liquidity fragmentation and complex user experience. He noted that protocols like Uniswap can capture more value by developing Appchains, but this approach may further exacerbate the problem of liquidity dispersion. In contrast, cross-chain deployment and shared liquidity mechanisms are a more efficient solution. Regarding Appchain, he believes that while it is indeed a trend that can help protocols capture more value, as protocols controlling the entire chain can better optimize cost structures and user experiences while achieving more efficient value extraction, from the perspective of the entire DeFi ecosystem, the Appchain path may not necessarily be the best choice. Mark predicts that as cross-chain technology continues to develop, multi-chain collaboration will become simpler, at which point the specific attributes of the chain where users are trading will become irrelevant. Therefore, he prefers to focus on addressing liquidity fragmentation through cross-chain solutions rather than allowing protocols to isolate themselves from the ecosystem through Appchain. Additionally, he mentioned that intent-driven trading models are becoming a major trend. This design allows users to clearly express their trading needs while obtaining a trading experience with zero slippage and MEV protection. Regarding market trends, he believes that it is unlikely to see a "DeFi Summer" again in the near future, but a "Memecoin Summer" may emerge. In this environment, DeFi applications need to seize opportunities while combining flexibility with robustness to meet user needs. He particularly emphasized that the success of future projects will depend not only on technological leadership but also on how to optimize user experience through data analysis and achieve collaborative development in a multi-chain ecosystem.

Thoughts

Conversations with these builders made me realize that Ethereum's current predicament lies in being overly focused on infrastructure development while lacking sufficiently user-friendly and attractive applications. However, from a macro perspective, Ethereum remains at the forefront of underlying technological innovation, which is important. After all, other chains seem to be "replicating" Ethereum's path in a similar manner, including meme phenomena.

Ethereum's loss of meme opportunities is partly due to its transaction fees not being fast enough, forcing some small and medium-sized users to seek chains that better meet their needs, such as Solana. However, Solana's success does not solely rely on lower transaction fees; more importantly, it has successfully attracted a large number of excellent developers and is more focused on the end-user experience. These factors have allowed Solana to stand out in competition, attracting many users seeking efficient and low-cost transactions. However, as Solana's transaction fees and MEV continue to rise, the use of trading bots and high-end tools has become widespread, which may also lead to the loss of ordinary users. The remaining players mostly trade through complex tools, a situation reminiscent of Ethereum's early meme phenomena.

Therefore, I believe that while other chains may become popular at certain stages, Ethereum's ecological position and potential remain solid overall. Ethereum's unique advantages in technology and ecological depth are difficult for other chains to replace in the short term.

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